The most common Echo Dot problems, and how to fix them

The Echo Dot is a fun smart speaker that plays music, answers questions, and wakes you up in the morning. The simple controls are one of the reasons why the Echo Dot has become so popular. Even though most users have a smooth experience, it’s possible to run into issues when using your Echo Dot. Common issues include connectivity problems or Alexa not pairing with another smart device. These common issues have quick and easy solutions.

Your Dot won’t connect to Wi-Fi

Has your Dot been too slow lately? Often, an unresponsive Echo can be the result of a faulty Wi-Fi connection. To start, try performing a hard reset of all your network hardware; starting with your Echo Dot, then your router, then your modem. Wait a solid 10 to 15 seconds for each component, then re-power everything in reverse. Sometimes this is all it takes to get things back to normal.

Wi-Fi does its best when it comes to walls and floors, but physical obstructions can certainly break up signal strength, too. The closer you can get your Echo Dot to the main location of your router, the better off you’ll be. It’s also a good idea to keep your Dot away from items like baby-monitors and microwaves, as the waves emitted by these types of household items can cause interference with the Echo.

Often during initial setups, Internet service providers (ISPs) will provide their own all-in-one modem/router combos. In the beginning, these might work fine for three or four devices or a bunch of older equipment. But after awhile, these towers just may not be strong enough for the square footage of your home, or for the demands of new and more powerful smart-home devices.

While it’s never fun to spend the dough, sometimes it’s just worth it to upgrade to your own standalone modem and router. Standalone units offer greater power and much better Wi-Fi coverage. These days, most router-brands offer dual-band options, letting you assign your Echo Dot to either a 2.4GHz band (better over long distances) or a 5GHZ option (a stronger connection for devices closer to the router). Keep in mind that many smart devices require a 2.4 GHz band.

In cases where your Dot stops controlling your smart stuff, or won’t detect new equipment, here are some things you can try.

Start by starting fresh. In the Alexa app, delete and re-add the smart device you’re having trouble with. If this doesn’t work, do a hard reset of both your Dot and the device. Then, reconnect and relaunch. In cases where your Echo Dot won’t perform specific smart-skills, try deleting the skill and then re-adding.

Now when you delete your devices from the app, you can just ask Alexa to rediscover them by saying “Alexa, discover my devices.” This is a lot quicker than manually re-adding the device in the app.

Alexa won’t listen to you

You’re showing off your new Dot to some pals, so you decide to hit Alexa with some simple trivia. You ask “Alexa, how big is the moon?” Her response — “I’m sorry, I didn’t quite get that.” Okay, no big deal. “Alexa, play Fear Inoculum by Tool.” Her response — nothing. Your friends start laughing off your new gadget, and you start wondering if you wasted $35 on some glorified kitchen-counter ornament.

Sometimes, Alexa’s interpretation of what we’ve asked or told her can get mucked up; other times she simply can’t hear us or recognize our voices. Not to fear though, as there are a few ways to put things in order.

For starters, there’s a really neat feature on Echo Dots you can use when Alexa claims she can’t understand you or does something completely unrelated to what you asked. After her response, you can say “Alexa, tell me what you heard,” and Alexa will repeat, verbatim, what she believed she heard you say. In many cases, all it takes is a little more clarity and enunciation on our part to set things straight with the Dot.

You can also improve your Dot’s responsiveness with Amazon’s Voice Training tool. Open the Alexa app and tap the menu icon at the top left of the home screen. Scroll all the way down to Settings and then select Your Profile. Next to Voice, tap Manage.

The app will then walk you through a speaking exercise where you’ll be asked to repeat 25 phrases at your normal talking-volume. This helps Alexa get better acquainted with the way you talk.

If you have more than one Echo Dot in the house, or more than one family member uses the same Dot, you can also set up different voice-profiles for everyone, which your Dot can easily switch between.

In cases where your Echo Dot is struggling to even hear your commands, try placing it in a quieter part of the room, or a new space altogether. Dots will always perform most optimally away from things like noisy dishwashers, dryers, HVAC systems, and other media sounds.

Alexa wakes when she’s not supposed to

You’re watching TV and there’s a character on one of your favorite shows named Alex. Whenever someone says her name, your living-room Echo Dot lights up blue, waiting for you to issue a command. Or, better yet, maybe your name is Alex, and whenever somebody calls your name, your Dot wants to do all the talking for you.

Now and then, Dots will activate to “wake words” that simply weren’t meant for it. It can be an annoying ordeal, but there are a few quick and easy steps you can take to resolve these false activations.

The easiest option by far is to simply change the wake word in the Alexa app by tapping Devices at the bottom of the home screen. Select the Echo Dot that’s giving you trouble and scroll down to Wake Word. For right now, the only alternatives to “Alexa” are “Amazon,” “Computer,” and “Echo,” but we assume there are probably more choices to come.

A second option is to press the Mute button at the top of the Dot while watching TV or listening to streaming services. This will keep Alexa from listening at all, but might not be the best choice for blocking out accidental waking if you use the Dot as a way to control your TV or home-theater equipment. This also won’t help much if your own name is actually Alexa or close to it. Your Dot would have to be muted all the time.

If all else fails, try relocating your Dot to a less-trafficked area of the home. Shoot for areas away from TVs and speakers. If you’re not sharing the Dot with any family members, keep it in your room or office so it won’t have the opportunity to hear other voices.

Music-streaming isn’t working

Echo Alexa

One of your Dot’s coolest features is its ability to rock your gym playlists using a handful of music-streaming skills; including Spotify, Apple Music, and TuneIn. Once in awhile though, songs will freeze up mid-play or your Dot won’t connect to these services when you tell it to. Sometimes, all it takes to reprimand these little hiccups is a couple of hard resets. Unplug your Dot, wait ten seconds, then plug it back in. Once the device lights up a steady-blue, indicating it’s back on your network, try relaunching your music service. If you’re still having trouble, try resetting your router and modem.

As mentioned above, the Echo Dot does its best work on bandwidth-rich networks, and music-streaming requires a good amount of data. If there are devices connected to your network that aren’t in use, you can try temporarily disconnecting them to free up bandwidth for your Dot; or, if you own a dual-band router, you can try reassigning these devices (or your Echo Dot) to a different band.

Sometimes, music-streaming can be finicky, and only one thing can truly fix these bugs — patience. Spotify and Apple Music servers can get bogged down from time-to-time, causing the services to run slow. If you’ve done all the troubleshooting you can do, just shut down the music stream, wait five to ten minutes, then reboot. Chances are Spotify will fire right up again.

Notifications are too loud

Your Dot is playing soothing classical music while you’re lost in a good book on the couch. All of a sudden, an ear-piercing series of chimes ring out from the speaker, freaking you out and totally killing the mood. Then it hits you — it’s the timer you told Alexa to set for the lasagna in the oven.

One of the greatest things about the Echo Dot is its ability to send you helpful notifications, from calendar reminders to Amazon delivery messages, alarms and kitchen-timers. The only trouble is that, by default, these notification chimes are louder than the regular volume your Dot is set to. While the point is for you to be able to hear these helpful tones from other parts of your home or over the music you may be playing, it can sometimes be too loud. Luckily, there’s a way to lower the volume.

In the Alexa app, tap Devices and select the Echo Dot that’s being too loud, then tap Sound. The volume slider for all alarms, timers, and notifications is right at the top of the page. Pull the slider left and right to adjust. In the sound menu, you can also change and customize the different types of tones your Dot can use to send you alerts and reminders.